Magnetic spiders and frogs? Oh my!

[Cali Coug]

I watched a special on tv last night about the world's most powerful magnet. It uses over 10,000 kw of power and is thousands of times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. All of the magnetic energy is concentrated in an area 2 inches in diameter.

They noted that no matter what was put onto the magnet when fully powered, it had the odd result of magnetizing the material and then causing that material to levitate (from the countervailing magnetic energy). It was really neat to watch.

They showed a plastic Mickey Mouse figurine floating above the magnet after being magnetized. Then they magnetized a frog and a spider. Unreal. Neither the frog nor the spider seemed to have any harmful effects, other than being oddly attracted to metal after they were magnetized. That might be cool for a jewelry thief, but I can't think a frog or spider would be too happy about being magnetized. That is begging to get hit by a car fender flying by 50 feet away at 80 mph.

I didn't know magnetizing those kinds of objects was even possible. Makes you wonder what else is possible with magnetic energy (they talked a lot about high speed trains that work off of magnetic energy as a practical application).

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

I watched a special on tv last night about the world's most powerful magnet. It uses over 10,000 kw of power and is thousands of times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. All of the magnetic energy is concentrated in an area 2 inches in diameter.

They noted that no matter what was put onto the magnet when fully powered, it had the odd result of magnetizing the material and then causing that material to levitate (from the countervailing magnetic energy). It was really neat to watch.

They showed a plastic Mickey Mouse figurine floating above the magnet after being magnetized. Then they magnetized a frog and a spider. Unreal. Neither the frog nor the spider seemed to have any harmful effects, other than being oddly attracted to metal after they were magnetized. That might be cool for a jewelry thief, but I can't think a frog or spider would be too happy about being magnetized. That is begging to get hit by a car fender flying by 50 feet away at 80 mph.

I didn't know magnetizing those kinds of objects was even possible. Makes you wonder what else is possible with magnetic energy (they talked a lot about high speed trains that work off of magnetic energy as a practical application).

Very cool -aren't these the same researchers that are hoping to use magnetic fields to launch space craft without the help of rockets?

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by tooblue

Very cool -aren't these the same researchers that are hoping to use magnetic fields to launch space craft without the help of rockets?

Yes. It was really cool to see. I can't understand at all how you can magnetize a non-metallic object. Anyone have any knowledge on that topic?